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Monday, June 27, 2005

The 'Bible Fraud' is a fraud? And the 'Da Vinci Code'?

"To Tony Bushby, the Christian religion began with the illegitimate birth in Rome of Yeshu'a and his twin brother Judas to Mariamne Herod.

"If that theory sounds familiar, it is because it was plagiarized from Robert Graves' novel, King Jesus.

"In historical novels, the most improbable speculation is legitimate, provided only that it is not known beyond doubt that this is not what really happened. On that basis, Graves book cannot be faulted. But as a theory of history, no biblical scholar has ever taken Graves' imaginings seriously, for the logical reason that there is no evidence whatsoever to support them.

"Now Tony Bushby has followed the precedent set by Joseph Smith, who found an unpublished historical novel by Solomon Spalding and rewrote it into the semblance of nonfiction under the name, The Book of Mormon.

"Bushby has rewritten Graves' undisciplined fantasizing as an alleged reconstruction of real events. Other analogies that come to mind are Emmanuel Velikovsky, Eric von Daniken, and The Chariots of Ezekiel, that all tried to pass off mushroom fantasies as reality.

"I had discarded it in disgust at the time I originally began to read it (in 2002, I believe) because I had noted a "twisting" of the facts in the first chapter...

"I revisited this book, reading it through to the end. Indeed, there were a number of interesting references, but again I found it to be a frustrating read because these references were often used in a very loose way intended to support the incredible leaps of assumption, and a wholly fantastic story..."

According to Bushby, Christ had a twin brother called Rabbi Jesus. According to Bushby, the Council of Nicaea decided that the stories of the two brothers would become one story. Jesus Christ would become God.

Constantine wanted the New Testament to tell the story of Jesus Christ.

Bushby claims that the parents of Jesus and Christ were a Nabatean Arab, Mariamne Herod, and a Roman Centurion, Tiberius ben Panthera.

Bushby relates that the brothers were raised in the Essene community. Rabbi Jesus was initiated in Egypt at the highest of levels similar to the 33rd degree of Freemasonry. He then later married three wives, one of whom we know as a Mary Magdalene, a Druidic Princess. He stole the Torah from the temple and moved to Lud, now London.

Christ, or Khrestus, conspired to take the throne of Rome, his royal birthright, and was captured, tried, and was sentenced to be crucified. At the trial, Judas exercised his royal birthright to have a replacement in Simon of Cyrene and then was sold as a slave to live out his days as a carpenter in India.

And so it goes on....

~~~

A Comment from Alton Raines

"The foundation stone of Bushby's erratic, nonsensically woven tale of two Jesii is conjecture and wild imagination, at best, having a remarkably embarrassing lack of evidence and/or reference materials for any given statement or postulation....

'How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us.' Pope Leo X (1513-1521) is a quote tossed around like a hacky-sack, but it cannot be substantiated in the least!

"Most research finds this quote, or a variation of it, attributed to a Carmelite who converted to protestantism named John Bale (1495-1563), a playwrite, who swore to inflict as much damage upon the Roman church as possible...

"...The essential story of Christ is backed by extant manuscripts (more than 12,000!) which literally stack neck high, whereas for often blindly accepted sources and resources of detractors and enemies of the veracity of scripture, there exists either no or little empirical data by which to authenticate.

"One of the key arguments posed by the De-Christers is that the earliest known writings about the life of Christ appear far too late to be accepted as valid or accurate. They are, of course, ignoring a key reality of that time which was the oral tradition, which then far outweighed writing (Plato called writing "third hand from the truth")...

"The Counsel of Nicaea in 325 AD ... was called to settle reasonable disputes of very deep intellectual, theological and rational inquiry (such as the nature of Christ, incarnate, man and God, etc) and to codify a creed and an authorized position...

The Bible Fraud is just that. A fraud.

~~~

Comment by Robert Alves

...There was a Jewish scholar by the name of Flavious Josephus. Jospehus was charged with writing/documenting the history of the Jews. He was given access to 1st century writings, scrolls etc.

In the year 93A.D, he wrote the extremely lengthy history. From Josephus:

"About this time there lived Jesus.... And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross.... " - Jewish Antiquities.

~The puzzles remind me of middlish early day computer games. Langdon's art historical 'expertise' amounts to Postershop insights (Ah, so Monet 'originated' Impressionism!). The book is constantly flattering the reader by presenting the most obvious and superficial connections as 'iconographical', 'symbological', 'etymological' conundrums barely withing the grasp of the (unconvincingly moronic) Harvard and Oxford men that run much of the show (the girl usually impressing with reminiscences and wide-eyed stupidity). By far the worst feature is the writing though. Pretentious latinates often wrongly used (without or the wrong prepositions - check almost every second page), habitual annoyances like 'he eyed her' instead of 'looked at her', etc. Don't even get me started on the hocuspocus history. For the easily convinced: Just open any academic (i.e. peer-reviewed) account of the topics in question to get a sense of what 'evidence' actually means. Most useful to remember perhaps (for Christians, anti-institutional Christians and the non-religioug alike): Just cos I like the idea of something doesn't make it true!

Michael W.~Rating: Awful

~I cannot remember a worse book - seriously. My dislike of the writing started with (literally) the first word. "Renowned Curator...". Everything in this book is renowned, or famous, or some such. Even the big evil hulking albino. Yes, an albino villain. Seriously. The thing is that Mr.Brown does not know how to write. Almost every sentence mixes metaphor and makes you shudder with jaw-grinding cliche (oh, look, now I am doing it.) The characters are flat and totally unbelievable. Yes, his "facts" on secret societies and Christianity's history are almost all wrong, and a GPS receiver does not transmit to satellites either. But the prose is so terrible that that hardly matters. Unless you are about 12, you should stay clear of this book. Best regards, Michael.

Tom B.~Rating: Awful

~Well. I read it. And with my legal training applied to this book, let's just say it's got more holes than a swiss cheese! To the simple minded it would lead them to this final conclusion: The Catholic Church, along with the Opus Dei (monks?) have obtained the Holy Grail, which according to Indiana Jones gives everlasting life, and are safe keeping the Grail in Area 51 along with a bunch of aliens, who are, of course, Jewish financiers, and are using its power to fix all of Vegas' games.

Paul H.~Rating: Awful

~Utter rubbish! Poorly researched garbage!! Where does one begin to point out the faults? Nowhere in Genesis is an apple mentioned in the story of Adam and Eve. Don't believe me? Well go and check it! It is the "fruit of the tree of knowledge." Leonardo did not have the second name da Vinci (of Vinci). The Olympic games were in honor of Zeus not Aphrodite etc., etc., etc. Coming to a car trunk sale near you in the near future...